While the UFC followers remain a loyal and concentrated lot, the movement of casual followers remains in flux, and the brand is constantly looking for a balance between sated its core and engaging new followers. Case in point is this past weekend, where a UFC event in Boston drew a record gate and new interest in a State relatively new to the sport, while at the same time the brand forged ahead with expansion into Asia, an area which has enjoyed success in various forms of the Martial Arts but has not quite accepted the UFC experience as a whole. The following day came word that UFC head Dana White is going to engage the Oxford debate team in another move of showmanship and a further step outside of the hard core.

All the movement is good, very noteworthy and smart for the UFC, the biggest question the brand will have is answering to its core fans when enough outside of the core following is enough.  While the UFC as a brand continues to do well as an event and a TV product, the move into the mainstream seems to have stalled a bit.  The core followers are loyal and engage every time there is a show, but the churn on casual fans has not yet produced more mainstream sponsors or dollars.  There also remains the issue with MMA as a whole, vs. the UFC as its leader. Other than the UFC no other promotion has emerged as a national, or international, viable option for fans and brands.  Now it doesn’t mean there has to be an alternative, as there is no real professional alternative to the NFL nor is one needed.  It could be that the experiential marketplace is just enough for a leader of one, the UFC, and their senior leadership is playing every card possible to make that case. If that is healthy for a sport remains to be seen.

So what does all the churn mean for the success of the UFC and for other brands which are still a step below major sports in terms of dollars and brand activation? For those above UFC, the company sets a great example of how to stay fluid and reinvent oneself in the marketplace by trying many new venues, markets and tactics to draw the casual fan. It also shows how to continue to engage your most loyal fans and supporters and give them exactly what they want in an entertainment experience. For those others struggling to survive in a challenged economy it also shows that you must build with your most loyal fans and supporters and grow from there.  The NHL, like the UFC, has done a good job of servicing its core.  Many can say that NASCAR in its growth has gone the opposite way..trying to be more “mainstream” at the expense of its most loyal fans’ interest, and the results for auto racing have been tough.

Will the new markets, the debate challenges, the glitz, combined with the gore, mean that the UFC will challenge the NFL? No.  What it does mean is that the brand knows how to keep itself at least in the mix constantly, and by staying in that brand conversation, there may be new dollars for engagement that a brand will try and potentially like when looking for a new way to spend its dollars and engage a young fan base.

Call the UFC whatever you want, they are certainly smart in the ways they stay engaged.

Like many other journalists, he has also slowly but surely embraced the new world of social media, and has helped the Post grow its following online in a time when newspapers are scrambling to balance the needs of the immediate and the historical.

So on Tuesday it came as a disappointment to hear that Wise had been suspended for a month (although he was going on family leave for a while as well) for testing the waters with a misleading tweet about a reduction in Ben Roethlisberger suspension.  The tweet was picked up by a host of followers who ran with the news, seemingly from a credible source, a columnist from the Washington Post.  However as we now know, the post was a test by Wise to show the lack of credibility in reporting news that is unsubstantiated  and is in the form of a few words…by anyone…without the ability to check its accuracy.

Maybe it was done out of frustration, maybe out of arrogance, maybe just to prove a point that it could be done.  What it really did was damage the reputation of a solid writer amongst some of his peers while fanning the flames of the fire that continues to smolder between traditional media and those who use the digital world as their voice, be it on opinionated blogs or legit news sources.  Like UConn’s Jim Calhoun, who ranted against bloggers in a press conference last year, or countless other established organizations who refuse to acknowledge, understand or embrace what is good about the emerging media, the move to “expose” the lack of credibility damaged the person who spoke out more than those he was trying to make an example of.

The forms of social media and those who use it effectively are growing every day, and the dollars being invested in those forms of media are also increasing.  Sites like The Big Lead and Pro Football Talk report on and break legitimate news, and blog sites like AOL Fanhouse and Yahoo Sports provide a voice for both young and established journalists who are growing their craft.  Yes there are issues, as there are with every form of media.  Anyone with a knowledge of how to manipulate key words and a keyboard can vent and post false information about any topic, and can reap the benefits of it for his or her own audience for a short period of time.  However those people are not looking for careers as writers or journalists, they are looking for self attention and over time, like many of the loudmouths who permeated talk radio in its infancy or fired off unsubstantiated stories in the days of yellow journalism, will be weeded out as the medium settles itself.

There is also no sound financial formula that shows this kind of medium can be entirely self sustaining for the long haul, and the need for credible, traditional news and information sources continues  to exist and will hopefully still flourish in a solid and adaptable form.

Is this the career changer for a solid writer like Wise? No. Does it probably give a voice to those who he was trying to weed out, and make victims out of people who are usually creating victims of their own through unsubstantiated work? You bet.  What is it we tell people, two wrongs don’t make a right?  Here is another example.

Now luckily we live in a society today where we will forgive and forget, and Wise was on his show Tuesday continuing to conduct business as usual. It was probably an even wider forum for his story that the Washington Post itself.  Now it’s hard to say if there is a lesson learned here.  Old wound opened again? For sure.  Myths personified again? Probably. A chance for the uninformed to rise again? Yes.  An opportunity to explore the blurred lines of communication? No doubt.  Not sure if all of that was what Mike Wise had in mind when he got up this week, as he faced being a father with the beginning of the fall.

Where this will go is unsure right now.  Bloggers and online journalists won’t go away.  We need good writers to tell the stories and report the news effectively.  Hopefully there is a happy medium and maybe when he comes back from his hiatus Mike Wise, a very good writer, can help find it again.

Latest case in point was this past week, when the team announced a tremendous brand extension by bringing minor league affiliate games to Atlantic City, and then donating some of the  tickets to the New Jersey Department of Children and Families for use by children in foster care in the Atlantic City area. The same week the team was holding some additional awareness events in their growing territory in northern Jersey, which continues to show how and where the potential for growth and support lies statewide. Would it be great if this could be combined with a settling of the Kovalchuk contract?  Absolutely.  However even with that bump, the team is correctly positioning itself for the casual fan in every corner of a sports crazy state, with no other team to truly call its own.

Also in a time when every organization and group is taking its turn dumping on Atlantic City, the Devils rode in with support and a rallying cause.  Yes it is only a few games in the darkness of winter, but it gives the businesses in Atlantic City, as well as its residents, something to point to as a positive and could lead to more in the future.

What Lou Lamoriello built as a great product on ice was never before matched in marketing or grassroots support, and that has now changed. The result could be a great confluence of bith superior product, fan and grassroots support that maybe can make the Devs more of a model for professional sports in the area than any other team, if all falls together.  Are there ways to go?  Yes, there still needs to be more of an in-season connection to the current players and their stories to the casual fan, and not just to the Devils brand overall.  There is still potential for great brand growth to the west toward the Pennsylvania border, and definately into Rockland County, which has always been a hockey hotbed.

However the move to Atlantic City, an area the Flyers once controlled and may not any more, is a great one, and another sign that the Devils are continuing to make smart strides at a time when the marketplace is wide open for aggressive growth.

The NFL has tried to take a similar stance, although the acceptance and understanding of American football outside of North America has still been slow to grow.  There is club interest in places like Germany and Japan, and there is certainly a better understanding of what the game is globally, but the growth of team awareness is not where the EPL is, largely becuase of the acceptance of the sport.  That being said, the NFL’s continued push into countries like the UK will continue, and its digital and television coverage for the casual fan will grow, especially for mega-events like the Super Bowl, which capture the audience because of its spectacle.

One element that the NFL has over the EPL is parity.  The nature of contracts and player movement has given teams the ability to ascend to playoff status in the NFL much quicker than possibly any other professional sport, and gives almost each team the unique ability to be in the playoff hunt during the shortest professional season at the outset.  While it is true that a slow start dooms a team quicker than perhaps any other sport, the NFL’s ability to market each game as an event has given its teams the ability to draw casual interest each and every week and keep most teams in the hunt and fans engaged longer, which is a huge positive for branding and selling.  The Premier League, as pointed out in a recent piece in the Wall Street Journal, is much more top-down in terms of haves and have nots.  Even as this season kicked off, Manchester United and Chelsea were atop and were not expected to have the challenge that would come in an NFL season for the title.  The difference in the two is that the tribal support of soccer clubs is largely sustained regardless of results.  Clubs fan and sponsor base continues on even with the knowledge that there is no yearly chance at on pitch mega success, a concept that, if presented to an NFL team, could be disasterous from a brand standpoint.  It is much more a  cultural support system that keeps clubs afloat than a win at all cost mentality.  now there are exceptions in the NFL.  Teams like the New York Giants and the Green Bay Packers have continued to enjoy large followings even in lean years (although that has changed slightly in the recent economy), but overall the NFL success is much more tied in-market to a combination of team loyalty and experience as well as potential of onfield success than it is in the Premier League.

Now as the the EPL expands and looks for new revenue streams and faces more competition for dollars than is changing, but it is changing slowly.  Manchester City’s huge budget this year, as well as Arsenal’s growth, point toward more of a win for dollars approach, and it remains to be seen how that will alter the branding landscape overall. Make no mistake that both leagues are phenominally successful, and are still the gold standard by which most other are measured.   The difference still lies in the culture, and as both begin anew, those differences, positively and negatively are both worth following.

Now  the large platforms that are unveiled around the US Open every year are certainly not new.  As a matter of fact in the last few years the economy has probably taken a bit of a bite out some of the larger scale promotions that took place in spots like Grand Central Station and Rockefeller Plaza, replacing them with more concentrated and viral efforts that can be more cost effective and target specific audiences.

Still, for a stand-alone annual event in one city, there is still nothing that can rival the US Open for promotion. Whether it is a rooftop clinic and exhibition, charity events featuring the best food, fashion events where brands and designers unveil the latest outfits, products being displayed or new technological innovations, the Open and its partners have it all. For three weeks wrapped around Labor Day, back to school and even Fashion Week, brands have a window of opportunity to engage a very affluent and diverse audience, whether it is in person at the event (which draws in excess of 400,000 people) online or in any one of a series of offsite grassroots events.  This year there will even be an opportunity to engage fans of the event from around the world in real time, as Polo Ralph Lauren will conduct a virtual tennis clinic with Venus Williams on the Thursday before the event, a very unique way for a global brand to engage fans and identify with the event not just locally but from every corner of the globe.

Other partners, ranging from new car partner Mercedes Benz to longtime sponsors like Chase and IBM will also use the event to engage consumers and customers with experiential campaigns and promotions that usually cannot be as effectively planned out with other events like the World cup or even the Super Bowl, because those events are constantly in motion year after year with venue changes.  The same holds true for U.S. Open golf.  The US Open tennis championship gives brands stability of venue and the ability to continuous plan out successful and consistent promotions throughout the life of the sponsorship. There has to be a fresh idea every year, but there does not have to be a constant hunt for location to figure out what the best ways are to engage with consumers.  Once a brand is involved with the USTA, the ability assess success is much easier than in most other elite events.

Are there challenges in negotiating the waters in New York at the end of summer?  Of course.  The challenges with the economy still exist as well, but the US Open’s opportunity for consistency with brand and for location continue to give the event a big edge in attracting and activating large brands that most events would die for.

Let the tennis branding games begin.

Does this mean the Yankees cram all their good will into one week? no.  What Hope Week does is serve as a great example of what the value of sport and celebrity can do for so many charities and causes, and draws attention to all in one concerted effort.  There is lots of followup, and lots of special events, the team and the players do prior and will continue to do after.  However by focusing so many efforts in one week, it serves as a great reminder to all what the team can stand for in the community.  This was not the first year of Hope Week, created by Yankees PR head Jason Zillo, but it was the most expansive, and should serve as a “Must Do” not just for baseball teams but for every elite team that wins a world title.  Spain should do a hope week for soccer in World Cup…the Lakers in LA…the Saints (who probably do the most in the community) should emulate the wide concentrated variety in New orleans etc etc. It should also not end with the pro teams.  The most elite of college programs should do the same, andthe USOC could handle as well.  No the Yanks are not alone in bringing hope.  What they have done first is really use the wide-ranging week, in midseason, to expand the brand and once again convey their leadership, this time off the field.  Well done.

Still, brands today must find the best fit for a spokesperson who fit the demo that they need to reach at the time that they need to reach it.  Is it a current star who will demand large dollars, or is it an elite athlete from the past who may best fit?  Also does that athlete understand and have the commitment to the brand they are working with?  Sometimes today the need for an athlete, or anyone who needs to generate buzz, to find ways to cut through clutter even at the highest level is critical for brand success.  Does T.O. have to do a reality show?  Would Joe D. have agreed to do one back in the day? All depends on how and what the athlete is trying to accomplish.

One other thing is for sure…even in today’s me generation world, sometimes brands can be best served by doing the work to find the mature athlete who can do all the little things that brand needs to succeed.  Sometimes it is a local star who may not have national value but can have local appeal.  Sometimes it is an iconic athlete whose star power may have been eclipsed long ago but whose story is not known to a new generation. A great example of the latter is Hershey’s work with legendary track athlete Rafer Johnson. Johnson has been a longtime spokesperson and ambassador for the Hershey’s Track & Field Games, the largest youth program of its kind in North America, and his stories of success in sports and entertainment in years gone by transcend generations for a brand that was willing to listen and find out how he fit in with their marketing plans. Johnson takes the time, because he has the time, to work with youth and make an impact for a new group of young people who are not familiar with his story, and he can work with the brand to inspire and assist with a campaign that speaks directly to engaging young people in healthy lifestyles.

Does Johnson need to use social media to convey those messages?  Maybe if Hershey needed him to he would engage, and if those platforms existed back in the ‘60’s when he achieved success he probably would have found ways to engage. It all depends on the time and the medium.  Would Johnson have achieved iconic brand success if he was an elite athlete today? Since he transcended sports and entertainment even in his day the answer is probably yes, and he would have had to deal with all the questions that today’s athletes have to deal with…what is too much, how do we engage with fans, how does one maintain privacy etc etc.  It’s all a question of brand and the medium today, and what the partner wants to achieve.

The bottom line remains the same now as it has been in the past. The talent adjusts to what the market will bear, and what those who write the checks are asking for.  Today, like days past, there are great stories to be told, and the outreach has to be tailored. There is no one set play that works for anyone, whether it was in the 1940’s, the 1960’s or today..

The loss of the AVP, which really had been established and run for years, raises questions about who is next?  Will the UFL make it for another season…will the AFL which came back this season but really has been surviving in anonominity, return stronger? Will WPS, which has lost a few franchises, continue on, and what about lacrosse, which has had both indoor and outdoor growth stunted without mainstream partners and media success? Are there models…like the Dew Tour or the XGames…tht have worked and continue to be sustainable? Does the public even need to see these niche sports week in and week out away from major events like the Olympics and World Championships? Figure skating and swimming, two of the biggest Olympic draws, have tried and failed on the pro tour side.  Do we need pro lacrosse or indoor football?  All to be determined.  One thing is for sure though, if all those second and third tier sports continue to fall by the wayside, the collateral damage in unpaid bills, lost jobs, and lost opportunity for emerging brands, will not be healthy for the industry.

The AVP experiental brand model was a good one…it just got too expemsive for the casual fan at this point.  Not for lack of trying though.

However, like the other “media scourges” before them…radio, then TV, then college students and media, then cable TV, then  talk radio, then mainstream internet…the medium for bloggers is becoming more professional, more thoughtful, more informed and more passionate with each passing season. Witness last Saturday in New York, when Fangraphs,  the site founded by Washingtonian David Appelman to dive deep, very deep, into the world of baseball statistics, drew a crowd of close to 200 people of many ages, from a screaming toddler to some in jackets and ties, to a  basement (of course) auditorium hard by Central Park (only a block from the old Copacabana, baseball fans) to hear both bloggers and journalists wax on stats, their craft and the media…all at the prime time of 9 am.

The conversation was self deprecating, thoughtful, and informative, as <strong>panelists ranging from New York Magazine (and Deadspin founder) Will Leitch and Bloomberg’s Jonah Keri to Mets Blog’s Matt Cerrone and the staff of the popular Yankees blog River Avenue Blues, covered topics ranging from the role of media to their thoughts on the teams they write about, for over three hours.  There was no screaming and ranting either against the media or the current state of baseball.  There were lots of thoughts on where bloggers view their place (as the voice of a fan, not a regular media member) as well as what mainstream media can and can’t cover and why.

Questions ranged from the value of NPR as a forum for sports to how the evolution of media coverage is affecting the job market and what opportunities now exist that didn’t exist before.  Yes there was a good amount of talk about analytics…after all this was a baseball stats platform…and the guys from Bloomberg took some time to walk through the media company’s updated fantasy sports offering. However a majority of the morning gave those looking for some scoop and a connection to those who they follow online lots of fodder. In a way, the event actually provided a link for the fans and bloggers in attendance to what they crave in following their favorite teams and athletes.  It gave them access.  In a day and age where access and content is king, even being able to talk to and make a connection with those who write the words and passionately give their opinion for the masses, was a breath of fresh air on another sweltering New York August Saturday.  The morning also would have given teams, leagues and traditional media a little more insight into those who follow because of their passion, a look that many times is misconstrued, misunderstood and misrepresented by those who control the access and run the media operations.

Is the blogosphere all warm and fuzzy, with each writer looking to be the next Pulitzer Prize winner? No.  As a matter of fact Cerrone, who has grown his blog into one of the largest and most oft-quoted fans sites in baseball, seemed in a quandary at times answering questions about how he should be viewed and what he wanted to accomplish.  His exposure points not only make him well-read, they can make him  the subject  of controversy when those he is covering…the players and teams…take exception with the opinion he voices as a passionate fan. There is also the issue of the blogger, many of whom are young and starting out in the media business, and what they feel their place is amongst the mainstream media.  Some have been given access by teams and use it sparingly for one reason or another.  Some have never been given access and would like to get a feel for what the beat writers, who sometimes are their most loyal and interested followers, have to deal with on a day to day basis.  Some still prefer just to voice their opinion, as informed or uninformed as it may be on any given day.  One thing is for sure though. All do believe in the power of the written word, and are passionately tied to their craft, even if in many cases it is just a hobby, albeit an obsessive one.

So in the end what was the takeaway for a Saturday morning?  One is that bloggers draw a following, one that mainstream media need to continually monitor.  Second is that they like their role in the media mix, although that role is evolving as the skill and professionalism of their take evolves. Third, they are not all basement dwellers and in many cases they do deserve the voice they have been presented with. All of which confirms the fact that in some way shape or form the evolution of the sports blog is continuing on, and may continue to make it from Saturday mornings and late nights to its own select prime time performance spot, sooner rather than later. Just ask people like Leitch, Keri and even Appelman.

They all have voices worthy of hearing, and they certainly are not alone.

Maybe its becuase of the length of the season and the amount of news generated by MLB and by Minor League Baseball in the States.  You fish where the fish are, and tell your story to your immediate consumer. However the issue lies not in the present but in the future, and that is where basketball excels.  David Stern preaches and then has staff deliver on all levels about basketball being a global game.  Soccer becuase of the nature of its fans, is a global game that even MLS can embrace now on a world stage.  Baseball is MLB and then everything else.  In order to grow a fan base in the States, one that needs to include a new immigrant base that may not be coming in as a fan or consumer of baseball, the game needs to reach out and tell its story.  As evidenced by the recent results, the story is there to be told.  The game is flourishing in new places and will continue to do so.  However without the effort and attention to detail in telling the story, baseball can lose an opportunity to grow virally in those emerging communities.   Yes people will have a chance to see MLB highlights and games around the world.  Thise highlights create inspiration.  However without telling the local story to a global audience you miss the aspirational effect baseball can have, and it is that aspirational effect…that I as a fan or an athlete not only like the Majors but enjoy baseball for its social and recreational aspects…that can have the biggest effect on growing the game in the future.  It is what basketball as a sport does amazingly well, what soccer does greatly, and what baseball needs to do more of to expand into new markets into the future.